


With You Even Then

by reason_says



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Crisis of Faith, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 10:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reason_says/pseuds/reason_says
Summary: The Force of Others is a matter of contention. Knowing it and believing it are not the same thing.





	With You Even Then

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for Baze/Chirrut: _'things you said that i wish you hadn’t'_

There has never been a time when Chirrut has not known the Force. He has always felt it, always known its unifying nature, even depended on it. There is a difference, though, between knowing the Force and believing in what it can achieve, and that… is where Chirrut has not always shone.

Knowing with rock-hard certainty that a chair exists is not the same as believing that it will support you if you sit on it, he reasons. You can’t know the construction of the seat, the strength of the legs, the sturdiness of the back. You know it’s _there_ , but you don’t trust it to remain if you test it. He knows the Force of Others like he knows the feel of the ground under his feet, but he still tests to make sure that ground doesn’t suddenly end.

This is what he and Baze cannot reconcile.

Baze has faith beyond what Chirrut can imagine, Baze has never known the trust of others but believes with all his being in their force, because he _has_ to, because nothing else makes sense to him. He doesn’t always see the Force, not the way Chirrut does, but he relies on it and it makes him the best Guardian Chirrut has ever known.

Chirrut should not have told him this.

When the Temple is taken, when half the Guardians are killed on the spot and nearly as many die in the first month in the city, Chirrut sees in the destruction the threads of a larger tapestry, although he has never seen an actual tapestry. He knows that all is as the Force wills it, _knows_ it in his _bones_ , so when everything else is taken from him he has no choice but to believe, in a sudden unpleasant jolt. He has to believe that what is immediately terrible will come to good, even if not for him, because it’s not about him. He believes, he believes, he hurts with the belief because knowing was not enough, it never could have been.

While Chirrut descends into prayer, Baze cannot help but see it as a slight, because if his belief made him the best Guardian Chirrut had ever known, then what he is now isn’t even worth naming, let alone ranking. He sees Chirrut’s meditation and finds in it a hopeless cause, hates himself for having shared in that hope, and he thinks, _if no one had ever praised his belief, he wouldn’t feel like such a fraud now_ , but there’s nothing he can do to change that.


End file.
